Monday, January 01, 2007

Happy New Year, folks! I'm ready for some serious blogging! I have a backlog of pictures, I'm listening to Sam Cooke (what better music to blog to!) and I'm just going to jump right in!

Some raspberry muffins:These were a part of a holiday gift basket I made. I used whole wheat pastry flour to keep them light, but not as unhealthy as all-purp.

Last night we rung in the new year with Chris and Kate. We watched "The Big Lebowski". Jim and I have been living a life of shame, having not seen it, when everyone we know has. We made pizza, one with an herbed pizza dough and another with the Oatmeal Pizza Dough recipe from Diann's blog. They were topped with red sauce, pesto, VwaV tempeh crumbles, eggplant, mushrooms, olives and artichokes. YUM!

Dinner tonight: We used up some leftovers and had soup and a sandwich .Tomato soup that I whipped up using pantry staples. A large 28 oz can of diced tomatoes was pureed in tiny batches in my handy chop, because in continuing the demise of my appliances, my food processor died last week. This was added to one medium sauteed onion and 2 cloves of garlic. I then added 1 1/2 cups water, a healthy shake of dried oregano and basil and half of a pureed avocado. Creamy and delicious. The sandwiches were my take on a sandwich we had at Chaco Canyon Cafe in Seattle. They had a layer of avocado, some leftover pesto from the pizza and a slice of Tofutti cheese, toasted. They were great dipping sandwiches and the pesto and soup naturally complimented eachother. And I was able to use up some random odds and ends from the fridge.

Earlier this week, burgers, sweet potato fries and steamed veggies.Dave's Killer Bread with a quick veggie patty and all the fixin's. Jim's actually on a nutrition kick and is forcing down veggies, albeit drenched in Veg-It. He wants me to buy some Spike, but I refuse to lose my husband to Spike, like so many of you have! What is it with them!?

Pumpkin Pecan Bread loaves from Susan's blog.Two of these were in a gift basket with the raspberry muffins, also made with whole wheat pastry flour. I love these little paper loaf pans, they are cheap, very pretty and make gift-giving loaves decorative and easy.

Some "cheezy" veggie soup I made last week, with some tahini, chickpea miso, and nutritional yeast.It was based off of a soup I used to love eating in school years ago called "California Medley". It's funny to me how anything that has veggies, avocados, sundried tomatoes or is just sans-meat is labeled "Californian" on menus. Anyhow, this was to help out Jim's lunches while he's into eating his veggies. I pureed some white beans to make this creamy and more nutritionally balanced.

Burrito bowl! Or at least, that's what we call it.Black beans dressed up with some cumin and garlic, some salsa, Tofutti sour cream, and quick guac (mashed avocado with some sea salt and a splash of lime juice). I like this dinner because it's super satisfying and can be whipped up in 10 minutes tops.

Last Friday, breakfast for dinner.We featured Leslie's Blueberry Grunt as a breakfast food instead of pancakes drenched in maple syrup. It was so fast and easy, Jim could have made it! We used WWPF and they were so moist and delicious. We ate them with the tempeh white bean sausage patties from VwaV. OMG. If you like the tempeh sausage crumbles, MAKE THESE! They will rock your socks. I made the grunt again the next day with raspberries. It was good, but the flavor was a little overpowering, so I think blueberries are optimal, or maybe a fruit blend.

What a long, blabbering post without a cute kitty picture? Linus was hanging out on Jim's lap during breakfast yesterday and was such a little chubber I had to take a picture! He was sinking into Jim's legs and was happily purring his butt off while kneading the air. Linus is definitely a lover, not a fighter!

18 comments:

Yay, a nice long blog with lots of great pictures and a cute kitty one thrown in for good measure! What better way to start the new year? HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! May it bring peace, health, and happiness to all living beings.

The one good thing about losing your food processor is picking out a new one! If I had known when I got mine just how much I'd be using it, I definitely would have chosen differently.

I don't even know where to start with all of your food. It looks so delicious. The banana splits are calling my name!!! I have no-bake black bottom peanut butter pie from VwaV in my fridge right now so I won't be splitting any time soon.

The soup recipe sounds so simple and delicious. I love recipes like this that are quick to prepare. And I never thought about adding pesto to a grilled "cheese" sammy. Great idea. Burrito bowls are very common at are house. They're just too quick. I like to add some shredded lettuce and lots of chopped tomato to mine.

YUM!!! I made the tomato soup and cheese sandwich for lunch today! Ok, I didn't have any avocado so I had to improvise.

For the tomato soup, I had used 1/2 onion earlier in the day so i had 1/2 ready to go. Rather than chopping up another, I added some diced mushrooms which I also had handy. For the creaminess factor, I used coconut milk (I had a bunch leftover from the peanut butter silk pie. Very good. Marty especially enjoyed it.

The sandwich was also very different. I put pesto on both sides of the bread. Then I used the spicy herb and tomato cheese from The Uncheese Cookbook. I (again) didn't have avocado so I threw in a handful of spinach. Crazy, I know. But it was really good. Marty didn't like it too much but too bad for him. ;)

That's a lot of food! It all looks good--I like the "copy" sandwich with the avocado and pesto and cheese... it's so fun to re-create what we have in restaurants sometimes! And wow, that banana split is enough to make me flip right now.

I just have to say that I love your blog! I just checked out the link from vegan*core and you're very inspiring. I can't wait to try the tomato soup, since that's my favorite and I'm always up for a new twist.

Thanks for your comments, everyone! It's good to be back in the swing of things, post-holidays and it's good to be out there reading all of your posts.

Diann, we do really love the oatmeal dough, it's very tasty.

Crystal, your sandwich sounds great. The one we had in Seattle had pesto, FYH mozzerella and tomatoes on it. Here, I was just improvising and trying to use up stuff. I made another one the other day, with just Tofutti cheese and pesto and it was great. Defintely a new use for pesto!

Thanks for stopping by Lena! Welcome to blogger world, we're all here to cheer you on and welcome you to the wonderful world of vegan food!

http://www.facebook.com/foodkingdom-----------------------------------This is excellent, finally a food portal which understands what food lovers are looking for. Best wishes and congratulations to the Food Kingdom team!